Supercomputers From Germany, India Chase IBM

Which supercomputer is the world's fastest? New rankings released today confirm that IBM's Blue Gene machine, developed for the US Department of Energy and equipped with over 200,000 processors, still holds the title. But whereas the Energy department owned the world's three fastest supercomputers only six months ago, upstarts around the world are catching up.

The New York Times' Bits weblog reports that the world's second-fastest supercomputer is now a German behemoth at the Forschungszentrum Juelich. In fourth place is a machine administered by Hewlett-Packard at a laboratory in India, the first time that country has posted a machine in the top ten. A Swedish machine is in fifth place. (More supercomputer stories.)